Phantoms of the Moon

by Michael Ciardi

With the passage of time and proper care it was conceivable for even the most deep and infectious wounds to mend. The cuts and punctures of the flesh that did not immediately extinguish life somehow rendered one more dedicated to the urge for survival. But the extent of all injuries was impossible to measure within the scope of a human eye. In fact, maladies often deemed most lethal to any species resided in microscopic obscurity, waiting to unleash their fury at the most vulnerable moments. But there was another level of agony, too, although it usually generated less anxiety among the masses. It was the process of recovering from a personal loss.

  How does a child who had lived for just seven years cope with the abrupt disappearance of his entire family? Was it even possible to expect him to mature into a functional member of society? At the age of seventeen, Ryan Hayden had proven that life continues despite the anguish of a fractured childhood. In essence, he defied all odds by developing into a respectable, though somewhat reclusive, young man.

  The few who were aware of Ryan’s traumatic past hardly believed he managed his life so efficiently. Although he was not recognized as an exceptionally handsome boy, he possessed admirable features. When he was younger, strangers sometimes complimented his sable-colored hair and blue eyes flecked with a tinge of gray at each pupil. Though once considered a runt, he now stood almost six foot tall on lanky legs that were typical for a boy his age. He might have even excelled at athletics if he elected to apply himself to the task, but he was more fascinated by the content of books than ball fields.

  Although Ryan required his eyeglasses primarily for reading, he elected to wear them as much as possible because it furnished his countenance with an aura of sophistication. He liked the fact that others considered him intelligent, even if at times he questioned the veracity of such opinions. At some level, he sought acceptance from his peers, but he never went out of his way to make new friends or engage in frivolous conversations in order to impress anyone. In truth, Ryan kept few people close to him, and this was the result of a lingering scar still apparent in the recesses of his mind. To him, it was far easier to deal with disappointment when he had fewer people to anticipate it from.

  No one really knew if Ryan would have ever recovered emotionally from his ordeal on that roadway ten years ago. Although he revealed few visible detriments, there was not anyone who initially provided the closure he required. The official status regarding his family’s case remained classified as an isolated incident. A few months after their disappearances, the investigation stalled completely and was eventually dismissed as unsolvable. Shortly afterwards, Ryan departed Glen Dale for what he hoped to be the rest of his life.

  Ryan’s maternal grandparents, Frank and Margaret Banner, welcomed the boy into their home in eastern Pennsylvania. Of course it was a time of immeasurable sorrow for Kim Hayden’s parents and their grandson. Adjustments had to be expected on both sides, and a team of psychologists had initially committed themselves to unveiling and treating any potential conflicts that this extended family might encounter. In the meantime, investigators from the police department in Glen Dale continued to occasionally search for clues, but not with any degree of urgency or success.

  After some debate, it was determined that Ryan’s mental stability depended primarily upon his capacity to live without guilt. A family court subsequently granted custody of Ryan to his grandparents. Margaret Banner had committed herself to securing the happiness of their only remaining grandson. He attended the finest private schools during his youth, which presented a considerable inconvenience to the Banners’ financial capabilities, but Margaret insisted the boy deserved more than what they could have reasonably afforded.

  Over time, Margaret’s attentive nature eventually instilled some much-needed confidence into Ryan, but he was never one to display any emotion too prevalently. Even when the boy was quite young, he never seemed particularly social and gregarious with his peers. He spent most of his spare hours locked in his bedroom perusing manuals on physics and astronomy.

  One condition of the custody arrangement required Ryan to attend monthly therapy sessions with a psychiatrist. The treatment was ordered until he reached an age where any potential symptoms of depression were properly ruled out. His grandparents, particularly Margaret, initially resisted this notion. But after observing Ryan’s reticent tendencies, she ultimately conceded that therapy was beneficial over time. Dr. Jack Evans, a psychiatrist renowned for his work in hypnotherapy, was appointed to the case.

  Over the course of eight years, Dr. Evans had struggled to observe and record Ryan’s behavior. The doctor and boy gradually developed a rapport, but none of their sessions delved too deeply into Ryan’s recollections. He still had very few memories from that life-altering night, or at least few he willingly shared with Dr. Evans. The doctor was wise enough to refrain from badgering Ryan over this matter, for he presumed the boy would have withdrawn entirely from treatment if pressured.

  If any progress from this therapy was accomplished, it halted abruptly two years ago, shortly after Ryan’s fifteenth birthday. The only explanation Dr. Evans received regarding this decision came from the boy’s grandfather. According to Frank, Ryan had become fatigued by the therapy and requested an intermission for an unspecified period of time.

  Dr. Evans considered the situation suspicious because he figured Ryan would have informed him of this matter personally. As it turned out, Ryan’s grandmother, who normally supervised the boy’s activities, died quite suddenly one week previous to Frank’s announcement. Frank’s words were emotionally motivated, but for reasons he would not disclose to the doctor or anyone else, he refused to reconsider his decision. Although Evans adamantly sought to continue the boy’s treatment, the matter was no longer in his control. His repeated phone calls went unanswered, and the courts no longer deemed Ryan’s case a priority in their filings.

  Over the past twenty-four months since his grandmother’s death, Ryan retreated to his own hobbies more vigorously. He spent most of his evenings locked in his bedroom gazing at the sky’s constellations through the lens of a telescope. Few things distracted him during this time. He sometimes found himself falling asleep crouched in a chair positioned beside his reflector scope. Perhaps this was the boy’s only remaining way to temporarily escape the cruelties that resided much closer to home.

  No one required the lens of a telescope to espy a man’s rapid deterioration. For most of Frank Banner’s seventy-five years he was rather conventional in his habits and normally satisfied to hibernate behind his wife’s domineering shadow. Before retiring five years ago, he awoke the same time every morning and spent ten or twelve hours each day at his car dealership. Though he never quite articulated his reasons, he had early reservations about permitting Ryan to come and live with him and his wife. Frank stewed with these notions for years as Margaret’s attention became increasingly centered upon Ryan’s needs. Had Margaret known of her husband’s true feelings, she may have never forgiven him.

  As Ryan aged, Frank secretly yearned for the day when he left for college. He sought to rekindle the nearly extinguished relationship with his wife and enjoy retirement together. But as it often occurred in this fragile and uncertain world, a curse had been handed down from the heavens. In one unexpected moment, Margaret clutched at her heart and dropped dead. With her death, Frank retreated to a bottle of gin and steadily transformed into a menacing drunkard. He now derived pleasure in spreading the desolation that consumed his life.

  In two years time, Frank’s skin yellowed and his eyes glazed with scarlet veins. The toxins invading his body distorted his coloration. But none of this mattered to Frank. Perhaps he even wanted to die. He slept most days when Ryan was at school, but upon evening he usually awakened to wipe traces of vomit or urine from his already soiled clothing. This decline was almost too unbearable for Ryan to observe. He dreaded to come home and watch this once decent man deluge his brain under a current of alcohol. Ryan pleaded with his grandfather to stop drinking and seek prof
essional help, but Frank had no intentions of doing so. The old man seemed to harbor only one remaining purpose in his lifetime.

  On this night, the rage hibernating within Frank’s distorted mind had surfaced once again. He managed to drag his bent body off the couch, where he usually passed out in front of the television with a gin bottle emptied at his side. As was the mark with most alcoholics, the only thing that mattered was surpassing his previous state of inebriation, and it was by rule that each ensuing binge required the consumption of more liquor.

  After reaching Ryan’s bedroom door at the corridor’s end, Frank leaned the weight of his body against the door’s frame. He then grasped the doorknob, but already suspected it was locked. In protest, he banged on the wood with his fist and blurted out barely coherent words.

  A delicately pitched voice sounded from the door’s opposite side. “What do you want, Grandpa? I’m kind of busy right now.”

  “Just unlock the damn door,” Frank sneered, spewing bits of saliva from his blistered lips.

  Though reluctant to oblige, Ryan had promised not to cause any problems for as long as he resided with the old man. He hoped to depart for college within the year, but this was conditional upon Frank forwarding the necessary funds that Ryan’s grandmother had guaranteed him before her death. In order to appease his grandfather’s curiosity, Ryan peeled the door open. When the bedroom’s light cast upon Frank in the corridor, Ryan winced in pity and disgust. The man was nearly bent over and gasping as if he had just sprinted a marathon. Frank wore a tattered bathrobe and one ragged slipper. Clutched in his hand, without fail, was a bottle of gin, already half-consumed at this early hour in the evening.

  Upon observing the man, Ryan uttered what he was thinking. “You look terrible.” His eyes then shifted to the gin bottle secured in Frank’s twitching fingers. “That stuff is killing you.”

  Frank chuckled with contrived amusement, which was typical for a man being forced to confront his own reality. “I…I don’t remember asking for your opinion,” he stammered in predictable fashion.

  Ryan elected to remain silent for now. Perhaps it was prudent to let the man rant about nothing significantly relevant. While standing in the doorway, Frank teetered from side to side as if he balanced upon a tightrope. Even though he seemed somewhat disorientated, his eyes kept trying to peer over Ryan’s shoulder to inspect the bedroom’s interior.

  “Why is your door always locked?” Frank pondered aloud, sounding suspicious even amid his drunkenness.

  To Ryan, the answer was obvious. “I like my privacy, Grandpa. You know that.”

  Frank tittered shrewdly before replying, “I know a lot of things. For example, I know you spend too much time in this room. If I had any less sense, I’d swear you were up here knocking boots with some young vixen.”

  Ryan yanked the door open so that Frank had a clear line of sight of the entire room. It was a simple décor, virtually unchanged since Ryan first occupied it over nine years ago. The furniture consisted of a solid oak bed, one dresser, a desk with an attached bookshelf, and nightstand. Perhaps the most imperative item to Ryan was positioned directly in front of the window. The boy had spent many evenings hunched in front of his Newtonian Reflector telescope, and he was in the process of doing so again tonight before being rudely interrupted.

  The thought of Ryan relishing any activity caused Frank to sneer with disapproval. He particularly detested the boy’s fascination with the stars and planets. Perhaps Frank’s prejudice formed because the telescope had been a gift from his wife, and one that he strongly protested for unstated reasons.

  “So this is what you do,” Frank motioned to the scope mounted on its Dobsonian base, but he did not yet enter the room. “You sit on your ass all night and watch the sky.”

  “I didn’t think it has ever caused you any trouble.”

  Frank leaned against the doorway’s frame and scratched at the gray hair on his chest. His scent was an unsavory mixture of stale urine and gin. “Lord only knows why my Margaret supported this silly hobby of yours. I don’t see what you’re getting out of it.”

  “For one, a potential scholarship,” Ryan remarked. “If I continue to do as well this year, I could get into some top schools.”

  “So you’ve told me continuously,” Frank snorted as he nudged Ryan aside and wobbled into the bedroom.

  Ryan’s bedroom was not typical for most teenagers. Although Frank made an effort not to enter very often, he immediately noticed how ordinary it seemed. There were not any posters adorning the plain white walls, or even a trace of decorative flare that hinted to the age of its primary occupant. Frank’s line of sight drifted casually around the room, stopping momentarily on a shelf of books neatly arranged near the boy’s desk. These offerings read more like the literature of a scientific scholar than a senior in high school. An arsenal of manuals on physics and research from the likes of Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Herschel, and Einstein provided the ammunition for all of the conflicts of time and space.

  Even in his most disorientated hours Frank realized that he could not defeat Ryan in intellectual combat. If he planned to attack the boy, he needed to resort to areas where his opponent had less expertise. “You know something,” Frank said before taking another swig from his gin bottle. “I almost wish you did have a girl up here. Seems to me that you need to get some experience under your belt.”

  “Actually, I’d rather just stay in my room,” Ryan countered, obviously irritated by his grandfather’s crass demeanor. “After all, I do need to finish my homework.”

  Ryan attempted to keep the pitch in his voice at a respectable level. His body language alone clearly suggested that he was uncomfortable with Frank’s scrutiny. Since Frank never cared to recognize subtle gestures, he continued to inspect the boy’s surroundings as best as his bloodshot eyes permitted. His attention soon shifted from the books to the dresser-top, where a photograph of Ryan’s parents and brother sat for over nine years. A thin layer of dust had accumulated on the photo’s lacquered frame.

  Frank Banner may not have been an overly empathetic man, but his eyes still glistened with tears when he was reminded of his lost daughter. The memories of a broken family still shattered his spirit and kindled something close to compassion in his rapidly deteriorating soul.

  As Frank lingered in his stance, he sensed Ryan’s uneasiness. Ryan followed his grandfather further into the room and tentatively said, “I really do have to finish mapping out a constellation in Orion for my exam tomorrow.”

  “I heard you the first time,” Frank mumbled, while dragging his thumb across the pewter-colored dust covering the photo’s glass frame. He then swung his body sharply toward Ryan and slurred, “Do you remember them?”

  Ryan hesitated to answer his grandfather’s question initially because he assumed that it was an insensitive inquiry. Those words pierced Ryan’s heart like a hot wedge of steel. Frank edged closer to Ryan in these seconds, clutching the photograph in one hand and the bottle of gin in the other.

  “Tell me,” Frank continued, gruffly. “Was your brother Robby into all this planetary bull crap as much as you are?”

  Ryan appeared genuinely dumbfounded. “I don’t remember, Grandpa. We were very young.”

  “Of course,” murmured Frank disdainfully. “I thought you’d say something like that. I just wish you would come clean with me.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Ryan sounded deflated as he watched Frank reposition himself near his telescope. Frank glanced at the white, metal tubing of the cylinder-shaped scope and snickered as he sensed Ryan’s fretfulness. Frank then brushed the weight of his body against the base, causing the instrument to wobble slightly from its position in front of the window.

  Frank gulped another ounce of alcohol through his thin, scabby lips before saying, “Am I making you nervous?”

  Ryan attempted to relax, but his anxiety was apparent by now. “I’m not nervous,” Ryan denied and then motioned to the scope. “But I kn
ow that you’ve been drinking and I don’t want anything to get broken.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Frank grumbled. He then alleviated some of Ryan’s worry by sidling over to the boy’s bed. He crouched down on the side of the mattress and placed the photo on the bed’s ragged comforter. His voice was suddenly solemn again. “I probably wouldn’t have bothered you tonight, Ryan. I like to drink alone, and to die alone too, for all that it matters.”

  “You’re not going to die,” said Ryan, trying to sound optimistic. “But you have to stop drinking and get your life back in order. I know Grandma is gone, but she would’ve hated to see you like this.”

  “Is she watching me?” Frank babbled, sardonically. “Can you see her in heaven through that confounded telescope of yours?”

  “Stop it,” Ryan demanded. “I won’t talk to you about this while you’re drunk.”

  “As far as I can tell, you won’t talk much about anything. Now there’s something that hasn’t changed. For years, my Margaret wouldn’t let me ask you about that night.” Frank’s eyes suddenly cast downward to the photograph on the bed before he continued. “She once threatened to leave me if I ever dared to ask you. But I feel like I need to know what really happened now. You’re not a child anymore, and Margaret’s already gone.”

  Ryan sighed softly after he considered his grandfather’s request, but the details of the night in question remained obscure in his mind. “I’ve tried to remember,” he said honestly. “I just can’t do it. But I can’t believe you’re serious, Grandpa. If you wanted me to remember everything, why did you insist I stop seeing Doctor Evans two years ago?”

  “Truthfully, I was tired of you hiding behind the shadow of a shrink. Maybe I figured you’d confide in me man-to-man. After all, wasn’t I like a father to you for the last ten years? Isn’t that worth an ounce of respect?”

  Ryan felt obligated to say something to assuage his grandfather’s sorrow. Perhaps it was the drinking that suddenly spawned such emotion from the normally callous man. It was more than likely that Frank harbored such thoughts in his heart for years, and only now, with no one to censor his outbursts, he uttered them as frequently as he consumed alcohol. Whatever Frank’s motivations happened to be, Ryan never sensed his love for him as a grandson. A distance had kept them at bay years before Margaret died and Frank’s drinking intensified.

  “I wish I could fix everything,” Ryan muttered with a pensive stare directed toward his bedroom window. “I never wanted any of this to happen. The night my family vanished was the worst one of my life. Doctor Evans told me that I subconsciously buried the facts so that I could function normally, and I always wanted to believe him. You and Grandma gave me so much, and I can never really repay either of you for your kindness.”

  Frank’s voice then chimed with a sudden warmness that sounded somewhat contrived. “You loved my Margaret, didn’t you?”

  “Of course,” Ryan remarked without hesitation. “She was my grandmother.”

  Frank continued to gaze at the boy’s face with an exactness that defied his present state of inebriation. The old man’s expression did not flinch. It was as though he searched for a hint of dishonesty behind the dark blue reflection of Ryan’s eyes. After a few seconds, Frank brought the bottle of gin to his lips and took a swig. Then, feeling a bit queasy, he stood up from the bed and started to stumble toward the open bedroom door.

  “I’ll let you get back to being alone,” Frank slurred in a whispery voice. “You seem to like that best anyhow.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  Frank waved his hand at the boy as he staggered out of the room. Upon reaching the hallway, he said, “Don’t trouble yourself over me. Go put your head back up in the clouds where it’s most useful.”

  “Maybe we can talk more tomorrow when you’re sober,” Ryan suggested, half-heartedly.

  Frank did not offer another response. He simply lurched down the corridor and lost himself in the shadows. Once reaching the hallway’s end, Frank spent the remainder of this evening pitched face-first over a toilet regurgitating every ounce of fluid that churned in his rancid gut.

  Ryan closed his door and immediately felt a sense of relief. Avoiding such confrontations with his grandfather had become increasingly difficult. But with Frank now engaged in his own routine, the boy’s room became quiet again, and the clarity of the evening’s sky promised visions he was more accustomed to understand. Before resuming with his homework, Ryan noticed the photograph of his family still situated on the bed. He gently picked up the frame and held it between his fingers for a few minutes. To his surprise, an unusual amount of silvery dust had coated the photograph’s surface. The grainy material stuck to Ryan’s fingers momentarily. It was a dust grayer and heavier than what Ryan considered normal.

  Perhaps a tad bit more of general cleaning on Ryan’s part would have served as a remedy, but he was too preoccupied to start house chores tonight. Instead, Ryan used his shirt to rub the photo clean. The dust particles scattered in the air and drifted like a silver-flecked snowstorm to the beige carpeting. Before long, Ryan’s attention returned to the pellets of light in the sky outside his window. And as quickly as any storm passed overhead, all that seemed tainted thus far with this night suddenly became a matter of little consequence.